A lot or a little?

The parents' guide to what's in this movie.

People who practice sadistic violence enjoy teaching it to their children and are never caught by the police.

Positive Role Models & Representations

A young idealistic nurse thinks she can be nice to institutionalized sociopathic killers, but is proven wrong.

Violence

A boy refuses to cut a man with a chainsaw, apologizes to his mother who is egging him on. Someone else cuts into the man's leg. Man bludgeoned to death with sledgehammer. Man's head banged against a window until both break. Man opens a wounded man's chest with a chainsaw; blood gushes as he dies. Mother urges son to chainsaw a woman to death. He lops the woman's head off to Mom's praise. Teen smashes man's head repeatedly in car door, blood gushing. Teen shot in the jaw; face bloody, large portion of jaw missing. Later he grimaces while it's being sewed up; leather harness is tightly strapped to face to keep wound together. Wounded man fed to pigs while still alive. Man's head crushed against a rock, then kicked in. A sadist shoots a girl, then presses his thumb into her wound while she screams. To hide from violent police officers, a nurse and two escaped inmates hide in a maggoty cow carcass and emerge covered with bloody slime.

Sex

Two asylum inmates start to have sex against a wall in the chaos of a badly lighted riot. No nudity is shown. A woman is shown from the back having sex with what turns out to be a corpse. Her scarred breasts and torso are also shown.

Language

"F--k," "s--t," "bastard," "bitch," and "ass."

Consumerism

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Teens take a swig from a container of what seems to be moonshine.

What parents need to know

Parents need to know that Leatherface is a so-called prequel to the extremely violent The Texas Chainsaw Massacreseries that began in 1974 and spawned six sequels and prequels and a 2003 remake. The original featured a psycho killer and was in some sense based on an actual criminal. It was banned in some countries for its violence. This iteration shows the young killer learning his trade under the bloody guidance of a sadistic mother, malevolent older siblings, and murderous grandfather. The violence is graphic, with stabbings, shootings, gushing wounds, and screams. A wounded man is fed to pigs, who eat him alive. A man's jaw is shot off and he is sewn up. A man's head is smashed against a window until both the window and his head break. During a riot in a psychiatric ward, male and female patients briefly have sex against a wall as lights flicker. A woman is shown from the back having sex with what turns out to be a corpse. Her scarred breasts and torso are also shown. Language includes "f--k," "s--t," "bastard," "bitch" and "ass." Teens take a swig from a container of what seems to be moonshine.

What's the story?

When we meet Jed Sawyer (Boris Kabakchiev), the youth who will one day become the "legendary psycho killer" known as the title character, LEATHERFACE, he's being asked by his mother to celebrate his birthday by chainsawing the pesky neighbor tied up near the dinner table. Oh, and birthday cake is being served. Gentle Jed doesn't want to hurt the fellow, even as his older brothers, mother Verna (Lili Taylor), and grandfather urge him on. Grandpa gets impatient and bludgeons the dinner guest with a sledgehammer, sending blood everywhere. The sheriff (Stephen Dorff) is pretty tired of gory bodies showing up where Sawyers happen to be. But when the Sawyers deliberately drop a tractor engine on his daughter, he sends young Jed -- in the guise of protective custody -- to a psychiatric hospital, where electroshock therapy is often the featured torture-of-the-day. Ten years later, Verna has married into wealth and hired a lawyer to help her see Jed, whose name is changed to Jackson (Sam Strike). She refuses to take no for an answer and breaks into the clinic, releasing prisoners and causing a riot. Guards are knifed, and a guy's head is smashed into a window until he dies. Inmates Isaac (James Bloor) and Clarice (Jessica Madsen) steal a car and force Jackson and Lizzy (Vanessa Grasse), a nurse he saved, to come along, or else. The cops pursue but the inmates manage to shoot up a diner full of innocent people, stealing money and cars and rifles as they move along. The sheriff turns out to be pretty violently psychopathic himself, torturing the wounded Jackson and threatening to kill his only witness, the poor innocent Lizzy. A chainsaw is wielded to lop off a head and split a man in two. The crimes go unpunished in order to launch a 40-year movie franchise.

Is it any good?

This horror movie serves up unapologetic blood-and-guts, its goal to be as repellant as possible and, given those parameters, it's a raving success. Raving is the operative word as most of the protagonists in Leatherface are escaped inmates from a psychotic ward, and those who aren't should be. Lili Taylor does a great job playing Verna, the fiercely protective Texas farm mama who has taught all her boys how to carve up annoying neighbors with a chainsaw. And her boys are made of stern stuff. Jackson's been shot and badly wounded while escaping a vengeful sheriff, and although most people with that kind of injury and blood loss would be moaning in pain, flat on a bed, Jackson enjoys a brisk trot through the woods wielding a live chainsaw, in pursuit of a terrified woman. And boy, does he make his mama proud.

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